Story summary
350px|thumb|Things got messy in the North Atlantic.The story of ''Return Of The Obra Dinn'' is divided into ten chapters. The narrative is non-linear and starts in 1807, five years after the Obra Dinn set for its final journey. In 1802, the Obra Dinn has launched from London with a full crew and some passengers, including four Formosans, It-Beng Sia, Bun-Lan Lim, and guards, Chioh Tan and Hok-Seng Lau. The Formosans travel with two main plot devices: a chest containing a shell, which they claim help repel the dangers of the sea. I: Loose Cargo thumb|250px|link=Loose Cargo, part 2The Obra Dinn is in Falmouth, taking on cargo under the supervision of the Danish seaman, Lars Linde. The rope carrying the cargo snaps, and the pallet crushes another seaman, Samuel Peters. Unknown to the crew, there is a stowaway hiding inside one of the barrels. The stowaway dies when the barrel falls over and hits the ground. II: A Bitter Cold thumb|250px|link=A Bitter Cold, part 1As the Obra Dinn sails by the coast of Portugal, two Indian seamen, Soloman Syed and Renfred Rajub, have contracted a fatal lung disease in the lascar house and eventually succumb to it. Meanwhile, the midshipmen, Thomas Lanke, Peter Milroy, and Charles Hershtik, assist the ship's butcher, Emil O'Farrell, in slaughtering a cow for its meat. III: Murder thumb|250px|link=Murder, part 1When the ship passes by the Canary Islands, Edward Nichols, the morally bankrupt second mate, slips into the cargo hold. He knocks Lau unconscious and breaks into the room containing the Formosan chest. As Nichols is about to take the shell inside the chest, an Italian passenger, Nunzio Pasqua, wanders into the cargo hold and catches him in the act. His theft thwarted, Nichols kills Pasqua to cover up his crimes and frames Lau for the murder. Some time later, Captain Robert Witterel sentences Lau to death by firing line. The Formosans protest Lau's execution, but to no avail. Meanwhile, Edward Spratt, the ship's artist, draws the execution scene. After the execution, Nichols forms a mutinous group and abducts the chest and the Formosan royals, incapacitating any crewman who attempts to intervene. One topman, Timothy Butement, attempts to stop the group, but Nichols quickly shoots him down. IV: The Calling thumb|250px|link=The Calling, part 1Nichols leads his band of mutineers on a mutinous expedition to the Canary Islands when a group of mermaids attack the lifeboats. Nichols hides under his boat, and nearly everyone dies at the hands of the mermaids, including Bun-Lan Lim. In the middle of the fight, Sia uses a spear that has impaled a crewman to break free from his bonds, takes a knife from the bottom of the boat, and uses it to stab Samuel Galligan, Nichols's steward. Sia takes the shell and places it inside the chest, creating columns of fire that stun the mermaids, but the action burns his arm to the bone and costs him his life. Nichols, the only survivor, hauls the unconscious mermaids onto the boats. He catches sight of the Obra Dinn heading his way, but as he hails the ship, Chioh Tan, at this point the only surviving Formosan, shoots Nichols and kills him. V: Unholy Captives thumb|250px|link=Unholy Captives, part 1While the captured mermaids are hauled on board, Captain Witterel has a seaman hold Tan for interrogation. With Huang Li, a Chinese topman, acting as translator, Captain Witterel interrogates Tan about the death of Nichols, the mermaids, the chest, and the dead Formosans. Tan is only able to say that the shell must be protected before a mermaid randomly spikes him and the seaman holding him for interrogation. The mermaids, even as they are taken to the lazarette, prove dangerous. One of them slaps the ship's cook, and the crewmen carrying the mermaid to the lazarette fall down a flight of stairs, leading to one of them to break his neck. Fillip Dahl, Captain Witterel's steward, witnesses this and later runs off to attack a seaman, cutting off his leg. Captain Witterel, surprised that his steward of twenty years would act out, brings Alfred Klestil and Charles Miner – the ship's bosun and his "Frenchman" respectively – with him to interrogate Dahl on his actions. Dahl attempts to warn them that the mermaids are cursed and urges that they should be thrown back into the sea, but he gets hauled into the lazarette for his trouble. VI: Soldiers of the Sea thumb|250px|link=Soldiers of the Sea, part 8The ship circles around because of the escalating number of tragedies afflicting the ship. A storm strikes the ship and Li gets struck by lightning. A pair of humanoid creatures mounted on giant crabs board the ship and kill more of the crew. Hershtik, one of the crewmen fighting the crab riders, manages to kill one by throwing a lantern at it, but he burns to death along with it. Winston Smith, the ship's carpenter, retrieves a hand mortar from Klestil and shoots the other crab rider as it is spearing him to death. VII: The Doom thumb|250px|link=The Doom, part 7Surviving the crab rider attack, three crewmen, Alexander Booth, Nathan Peters, and purser Duncan McKay, decide to escape. When Linde asks to join the group, Nathan refuses and clubs Linde for supposedly killing his brother Samuel, in spite of Linde and Booth's protests that the death was accidental. West of Madeira, a Kraken attacks the ship, causing the deaths of sixteen further crewmen, including the captain's wife, Abigail Hoscut Witterel, who has stepped out to look for her husband. The attack leaves only a skeleton crew. VIII: Bargain Inside the lazarette, Dahl breaks free from the handcuff. He opens the chest and pulls out the shell from it, but he burns off his arm and dies. During the Kraken attack, Captain Witterel deduces that the mermaids are responsible, so he enters the lazarette and kills them off one by one, in the hopes that they call off the attack. He takes two shells and throws them overboard. This stops the Kraken attack and the storm. Later, Third Mate Martin Perrott and stewards Paul Moss and Davey James enter the lazarette and come across a third shell in Dahl's hands. Perrott gets spiked before he could assure the mermaid that he has come to set it free. Mortally wounded, he orders the stewards to give the mermaid the shell, throw it overboard, and lock the door to the lazarette as they leave. He also asks the mermaid to see the Obra Dinn home. Even later, Moss finds the ship's surgeon, Henry Evans, attempting to enter the lazarette when the key to it has been disposed of. Aware of the functionality of a pocketwatch called the "Memento Mortem" and knowing that the East India Company will use the watch to investigate the ship, Evans ties his pet monkey to a rope, kills it in the lazarette, and keeps its paw before leaving. IX: Escape thumb|250px|link=Escape, part 3Meanwhile, Fourth Mate John Davies helps a dying Klestil to a chair in the gun deck. Davies tells him that his "Frenchman" was torn apart and that the Kraken went away with the storm, thanks to Captain Witterel. Shortly after Klestil dies of blood loss, Gunner's Mate Olus Wiater expresses doubts of Captain Witterel's trustworthiness. He broaches the subject of mutiny with Davies, planning to take over the ship and sell the "wretched fish" and shells. Lanke, the only surviving midshipman at this point, overhears the conversation and panics, alerting the crewmen of mutiny. Wiater stabs Lanke in the back for his trouble, but Davies intervenes, reaching for Wiater's gun. During the scuffle, the gun blows off Wiater's face. The dust-up catches the attention of Hoscut, who rushes to the dying Lanke's aid; and Brennan, who clubs Davies for supposedly killing Wiater with malice aforethought. Now to the north of Madeira, Evans, James, Moss, and passengers Emily Jackson and Jane Bird attempt to leave the ship, but Leonid Volkov, a Russian topman, catches the group and attacks, getting into a sword fight with Moss. Despite the intervention of Captain Witterel, First Mate William Hoscut, seaman Henry Brennan, and topman Lewis Walker, Volkov stabs Moss, killing him. He proceeds to attack the others, but Jackson quickly shoots him down, killing him. X: The End thumb|250px|link=The End, part 4After an indeterminate amount of time has passed, Hoscut, Brennan, and Walker all turn on Captain Witterel and attempt to extort the shells, but he says he has thrown them overboard. The crewmen do not buy the explanation and attack him. The Captain is forced to kill them all in self-defense. Overcome with grief, Captain Witterel sits beside his wife's body, laments the death of Hoscut, and asks for her forgiveness before shooting himself. Back in Falmouth Five years later in 1807, the Obra Dinn drifts back to port at Falmouth. An East India Company insurance inspector is summoned to determine what happened aboard the ship. They are given a book and the pocketwatch, both of which surgeon Henry Evans mailed to the East India Company from Morocco. The inspector completes their investigation and leaves the ship as the weather is about the get bad. After they leave, the Obra Dinn sinks in the storm. The inspector then prepares a full insurance assessment and mails the book back to Henry Evans. London a year later Roughly a year later, Henry Evans dies in Africa, and one of the surviving passengers, Jane Bird sends the inspector a letter about how Evans felt about the inspector's performance. If enough fates were confirmed, Bird sends the catalogue back to the inspector. The inspector gets a chance to find out what happened to crew members in the lazarette of the Obra Dinn as the package also contains the paw of a monkey that died in the lazarette. The story ends as the inspector places the fully completed catalogue in their bookshelf. Category:Return of the Obra Dinn